


As Magic As It Gets

by Femme (femmequixotic)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 01:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5724163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmequixotic/pseuds/Femme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last person Draco expects to see in the office of his relocation charity is Harry bloody Potter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Magic As It Gets

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rubysilkensun for the 2014 Glompfest on Livejournal. Many thanks to rubysilkensun for the wonderful prompt, to noeon for the wonderful beta, and to the mods for just being wonderful all around. <3 
> 
> (And huge thanks to sassy_cissa who reminded me that I hadn't yet posted this on AO3!)

Mondays have never been my favourite days. Weekends are a glory, spent either dancing in London's clubs with Pansy and Blaise at my side, our bodies thrumming to the pulsating beat of the latest dance music to climb the Radio 1 charts as we look for shaggable partners with whom to spent a few minutes or hours, or curling up in my Camden flat with a stack of books from Waterstone's Trafalgar Square and the best bottle of whisky I can afford in the stretch of shops beneath my windows. This weekend has been the latter, as I'm determined to work my way through the Booker Prize shortlist before the winner's announcement in three weeks. Unfortunately, such an endeavour has required far too little sleep and most of the contents of a bottle of Lagavulin 16 over the course of the past two days. 

Needless to say, when I finally make my way in to work--thanking Merlin's tits the entire time that the Tube strike's scheduled for Thursday and not this morning--I'm in a bit of a black mood, which, might I point out is not eased by the out-of-order sign on the ancient lift, thus requiring me to trudge up four narrow and rickety staircases to the minute Tower Hamlets offices maintained by Horizon Tally Job Centre, my pride and joy. The door's worn and unmarked and has a terrible tendency to stick when it's damp--or all the bloody time, this being London, of course. 

Millicent hands me a mug of milky tea. "You're late," she says as she follows me through reception, crammed with desks and chairs that once graced fine wizarding homes but now, scuffed and shabby, had been repurposed a half-decade ago for our work. 

"Bloody Tube," I say, even though my lateness has far more to do with my own inability to drag my arse out of bed. As a Londoner, however, I feel fully at ease in deploying the ubiquitous Tube lie. At some point in the next week, a delay or, hell, a train that just mysteriously fails to show at the station will be responsible for my missing a morning meeting. Or two. "You know how it is in the rain."

"Right," Millicent says with a snort, and she drops a paracetamol into my palm. "Pans said you'd be looking worse for wear today."

I take the paracetamol gratefully, washing the pill down with my tea: P.G. Tips left in just a bit too long, from the taste. I grimace but drain the mug dry, grateful for the caffeine, then hand it back to Mille. "I have a vague recollection of her ringing me up last night." I push open the door to my office. _Draco Malfoy, Director_ is printed across it in black-edged gold. "I may have ranted about the new Howard Jacobsen."

"I'm sure." Millicent's right behind me. Somehow she's exchanged the paracetamol bottle for a file jacket and my diary. Bloody fucking efficient that woman is. I'm half grateful Blaise hasn't yet made it in; it always annoys him when Millie hijacks him before he's had his morning coffee, fag, and goss session with me. "You do remember you have a meeting at half eleven with the Ministry rep, yes?"

"What?" I drop my messenger bag next to my desk and drop into the well battered leather chair I'd nicked from the Manor before Mother sold it all off a few years back--with my blessing, of course. After all that had happened there, I preferred the cash in hand to any lingering, ridiculous thoughts of family loyalty.

Millicent hands me the file jacket. "Comes with the funding request, right? We want Ministry money; they get to make certain we're not funnelling it to Death Eater cells."

"Bloody fucking hell," I say.

"Be nice." Millie tucks a dark curl back behind her ear, as she frowns at me. "Pans and Blaise worked hard on that grant proposal. The fact the bastards in Whitehall are even considering funding us after all this time--"

"Only because of the Squib angle," I point out, but Millicent flaps a hand at me, cutting me off. 

"Doesn't matter. We need money to keep this place operational, and the way donations have been dropping off in recent months…" The look she gives me is grim.

I sigh. "I know." All too well, I'm afraid. We'd started off well enough, some of the more prominent Slytherin families donating tens of thousands of Galleons for our work in resettling those wizards and witches who'd been forced after the war into the Muggle world--either through wand-breaking or the more likely inability to find adequate employment. The four of us--Pansy, Blaise, Millie and I--had been through it ourselves, tossed out on our ears, having to struggle not only to find ways to make a living once our families' funds were frozen but also to navigate a world without magic, a world we'd despised and feared for most of our lives. 

Three years after the war, we'd banded together, using what we'd learned to help the first wave of Azkaban prisoners being released. Greg Goyle'd been our test subject. Five years later, he's a carpenter in Leeds, building furniture that's being noticed by Muggle designers. Just last month he'd filled an order for Kensington Palace, only six weeks after he'd delivered an armoire for Pippa Middleton.

"Half-eleven, you say?" I shuffle a sheaf of papers on my desk. 

Millicent flips open my diary and scowls down at it. "Half-eleven, yes." She glances back up at me, eyes narrowing. "And don't think about wiggling your way out of it, Draco."

I crumple up an old note about accounting costs and lob it at her. "As if I would."

That just earns me rolled eyes. "I'll bring you another tea, yeah?" Millie doesn't wait for my answer before she pulls my door shut behind her. 

I slump back in my chair. Mondays. I _do_ hate them.

***

By the time half-eleven rolls around, I'm elbow deep in the minutiae of charity work: all the administrative papers, project reports, legal briefs, funding proposals--can't rely solely on the Ministry, after all--and donor appeals that come with the director's office. Pity the view's only a Sainsbury's car park.

I've jettisoned my jumper and jacket and rolled up the sleeves of my white dress shirt to keep the ink from my quill from staining my cuffs again. I suppose I could use biros, but I still prefer the scratch of a nub tip against my papers, even if my fingers end up smeared black. My glasses have slipped to the end of my nose, and when Millie knocks on my door, I'm hunched over my desk, peering down at Blaise's latest status report on the Monday evening class he supervises. Who knew the Muggle Studies coursework he did at Hogwarts would come in handy? He's the only one of us who bothered, and we'd mocked him for it, but he'd pointed out even back then that it'd be smart to know the enemy. Particularly if one might have to judiciously disappear from the wizarding world at some point. Blaise was always much more far-sighted than the rest of our lot.

"Draco?" Millie's head pops through the doorway. "The Ministry bloke--"

"Bollocks." I sit up, wincing as my shoulders pop back into place. "Fine. Send him in."

She gives me an inscrutable look. "Right. Well…it's just…."

"Millie," I say sharply. "Let's have this bloody done with, all right? How bad can it be? I mean, Muggle Outreach didn't send Harry bloody Potter, I'm certain."

When Millie's face falls, I realise my mistake.

"They didn't send whom?" Potter asks mildly over Millie's shoulder. He slides past her and into my office.

I give Mille a desperate look, but she just shrugs and closes the door behind him. Potter just stands in front of my desk, watching me. He's in Muggle clothes, jeans and a black jacket, a white shirt and red tie beneath. His hair's shaggier than I remember it, and it falls attractively over his forehead in rumpled curls. With his dark-rimmed glasses he bloody looks like Q from that latest Bond film Pans had dragged me to yonks ago which had bored me to tears mostly, but I _had_ rather enjoyed Ben Whishaw, and fucking Merlin's hairy balls how hadn't I seen the resemblance back then? Even Blaise had laughed at me when I'd mentioned fancying the chap, and he's far from the most observant of my friends. 

"You don't have a Floo," Potter says, and I look at him blankly. 

"What?"

"A Floo," he says again. "For the use of wizarding families."

"Oh." I feel my cheeks warm. Christ. There'd better not be sweat stains beneath my armpits. "No. It seemed better in early days to be more discreet both inside and out of the wizarding world. All things considered." You know. With all the good, solid witches and wizards of Great Britain eager to knock about anyone who might have even had a family member who'd might possibly have once said a nice thing about He Who Must Never Be Spoken Of Again.

I don't have to say that for Potter to take my point. He nods. "Can I sit?"

"Suit yourself." I motion towards one of the two leather chairs in front of my desk. Potter chooses the one that hasn't had a chunk ripped out of the arm by Mathilda, our office cat, currently curled on top one of my filing cabinets, sleeping in a patch of lukewarm sunlight that's managed to break through the clouds. Her black-tipped tail flicks slightly as I eye her before turning my attention back to Potter. I push my glasses back up the bridge of my nose. "So you're the Ministry representative."

"Yeah." Potter points to my nose. "You just…"

Shit. I glance down at my fingers. Sure enough, there's ink smudged across two of them. Sod it all to hell. My face heats up again as I rub the ball of my palm over my nose. I can tell from Potter's amused smirk that it's only smeared the ink more. 

"Here," Potter says, and he pulls a spotless handkerchief from his pocket. He leans across my desk and brushes the soft linen across my nose. The scrap of fabric is obviously charmed; I can feel the magic against my skin and it takes all I can do not to sigh and lean into it. It's been so long since I've felt that prickle and zing. When he settles back into his chair, I can see the ink sinking into the handkerchief, vanishing away. 

"Thank you." I know I'm too stiff. We need this meeting to go well. I try to relax. "So what do you want?" I bite the inside of my cheek. Potter's always made me want to be contrary. I force myself to smile. "I mean, of course, how might we assist the Ministry in your perusal of our case?"

Potter's mouth quirks to one side. He opens the black leather portfolio he's settled on his lap. "You're asking for funding to settle Squibs into the Muggle world?"

"Yes." I eye him. "I still don't understand why you're the one here--"

"Because I asked to be here," Potter says, surprising me, and he doesn't look up from the papers he's flipping through. "Why Squibs?"

"It's a need we discovered over the past few years." I watch him as he runs a finger down a page of sums. Our latest budget, I recognise. The one submitted with our proposal. "Families started coming to us, asking what could be done. The Ministry didn't seem to really give a damn."

That makes Potter glance up at me. "The Ministry's always helped Squibs move into Muggle employment."

I snort, my temper rising. "The Ministry's done fuck all for them. Sure, they point them in the direction of their local job centre, and they give them a Muggle suit or dress to interview in, but nine times out of ten the clothes are a decade out of fashion. And do they even bother to help them set up a Muggle identity? I think not. Who's going to make certain they have a NHS number in the system if they end up in hospital? What about a passport? Or a birth certificate? Or driving a car? Not every Squib lives in London, Potter. Some of them actually do need a motor to get to work."

"And you do all that?" He sounds surprised.

"Have you read the bloody proposal?" I run a hand through my hair, not caring if I leave streaks of ink in it. 'Yes. All that and more. We've placed Pansy in the General Register Office to facilitate the creation of Muggle identity documents. Blaise doesn't just do our fundraising; he also teaches every witch, wizard and Squib who comes into our care how to maneuver in the Muggle world. How to use bank notes; how to summon a black cab--or an Addison Lee if they prefer. Even how to go the cinema or the footie without making a complete tit of themselves."

Potter leans back in his chair, looking at me, then around my office, taking in the piles of paperwork and the dust motes floating in the air. "And what do you do, Malfoy?" he asks finally. "Or Millicent?"

My mouth tightens. Of course. Here it is. Malfoy must be doing something off the books, mustn't he? It's what they all think. I hope my father's rotting in whatever hell he set himself to with the Diffindo he'd used to slice through his blackened heart. "So this is what it is, then?" I lean forward, and my hair swings against my cheek. I push it back behind my ear. "Make certain Malfoy's not up to his old tricks?"

"It's a reasonable question," Potter says coolly. "Some of your previous clients have put a foot or two back into the wizarding world. Illegal potions, botched charmwork, that sort of thing."

"You took away their wands. Snapped them." I can't help but look at my own wand, broken into thirds, that I've framed and mounted on the wall. I wanted it as a reminder--of what I'd lost, of what I'd left behind, of what I never wanted to be again. Potter's gaze follows mine, and I see a flicker of something cross his face. It disappears quickly and he turns those steady eyes back on me. 

"People can buy new wands. Steal them even." He shrugs, and I can't help but notice how broad his shoulders are, how tight the jacket is stretched across them. He's in the Ministry now. Left being an Auror for some reason. Mother still keeps ties with the wizarding world, as does Pansy. I hear things, whenever they care to share. For some reason, when it comes to Potter, they always do. 

I pick up a file jacket and slap it onto another pile of paperwork on my desk. "And family can give them used wands as well. Help them break the law, all around. This isn't about Squibs, is it, Potter?"

He just looks at me. 

"Fuck you," I say, and I almost regret it. Millie will be furious with me if Potter walks out right now and stamps a denial on our funding request. 

Potter's silent for a moment. "Look," he says at last. "We have to look into these sorts of things. The Ministry knows you were resettling former Death Eaters--"

"Because they'd been exiled from the wizarding world," I snap. "Because _someone_ had to help them. None of your lot were willing to lift a bloody finger. What the hell did you think was going to happen, Potter? The Ministry'd drained their Gringotts accounts for what they called reparations. If they managed to get a job of some sort it was always menial labour that lasted a month or two before someone decided they needed to move on--"

"That's not--"

"Oh, yes it most definitely is true." I stand up, my fists pressed against the desk blotter. It's the only way I can keep my hands from shaking with fury. "What did you think was going to happen to them? No one will admit to wanting them to starve on the cobblestones in Knockturn Alley, but that's what would have happened if they hadn't come to me. Not even their families could afford to show them any pity. Your lot would have turned on them too. Called them sympathizers. Marked them--"

Potter puts his hand over mine. "Malfoy."

I pull away, falling back into my chair. I can still feel the press of his fingers on my skin. "You should go," I manage to say. 

He nods and closes his portfolio. "My intention wasn't to question your integrity--"

"Yes, it was," I say. I pick up my quill. It trembles between my fingers. I look up at him, and I twist my mouth bitterly. "Once a Malfoy, always a Malfoy, right, Potter?"

Potter just stands up. He starts to offer me his hand, then drops it back to his side. "I was only sent to verify the charity's recipients. There was a question--"

I wave my hand at him. I'm tired. "Of course there was." Mathilda stretches and shifts, arching her back and flicking her tail before she leaps gracefully from the file cabinet to my desk. I let her brush against my knuckles before I scratch her black tabbied head. Potter watches us for a moment, then heads for the door. I stop him as he reaches for the doorknob. "Millicent," I say, my voice weary and aching against the back of my throat, "is one of the best assistants in London. Any charity would die to have her. And as for me…" I gesture around my messy desk. "I do paperwork, Potter. And I can guarantee none of it in any way benefits any cause that might have once been supported by my bastard father. Am I clear?"

"Yeah," Potter says quietly. "Absolutely."

When the door closes behind him, I press my face into Mathilda's warm flank, waiting for Millie's thunderous expression to appear in my doorway. "Oh, girl," I murmur into her dark fur, "I think I may have just ballsed everything up."

Her purr rumbles through her body, comforting me.

***

It's late when I stagger through the door of my flat. Pansy's sitting cross-legged on my sofa, heels on the floor, with a takeaway container of beef lo mein in one hand and her gaze fixed determinedly on the laptop perched on the edge of the ottoman. I'm not even surprised. Now that Blaise has started dating some Muggle girl he met at a Swedish film night our local cinema hosted a month past--and by dating, I mean shagging senseless--Pansy spends half the week sleeping on my sofa--or in my bed if she can guilt me out of it.

"Get a new flatmate," I say when I see her. "It's ridiculous you're still living with your ex-boyfriend."

"Don't even start with me," Pansy says, stabbing a set a chopsticks my way. "Bake Off's on iPlayer, and Mary Berry's about to tell this bloke what a fool he is. I mean anise biscuits? As if anyone intelligent likes those." The chopsticks dip back into the singapore noodles, and Pansy pops a prawn into her mouth. I don't bother to point out Blaise loves anise biscuits. Most of the time their relationship is amicable. Pansy only goes bitter when Blaise brings a girl home she thinks might be prettier than her. Marta is tall, blonde, and willowy thin, with a smart mouth and a perfect arse that might be able to tempt even me into heterosexuality. Pansy _loathes_ her.

I drop my messenger bag on the table next to another takeaway box and a set of chopsticks. I open it and inhale the sweet, spicy scent of peppercorn chicken. "Paya again?" I ask.

"They deliver." Pansy barely looks up as I sit down next to her. Paul Hollywood's pointing out how badly some woman's bake is as the camera pans to her pained faced. 

"I can't believe you watch this," I say. "You can't even make a cheese toastie."

Pansy manages to slurp noodles off her chopsticks without spilling a drop of curry sauce on her cashmere jumper. "That's what mobiles and delivery lads are for, darling. Besides, I rather enjoy Mary's pursed mouth of disapproval. Reminds me of the way Snape used to glower at the Gryffindors when they bollocksed their potionbrewing."

"Those were the days." I poke at my chicken. "Speaking of--"

"Harry Potter showed up at the office." Pansy reaches a foot out and pauses the video on her laptop with one stocking-clad toe against the trackpad. She eyes me over her noodles. "Yes, I know. Millie rang me, absolutely furious with you for being--what was it she called you? A bloody daft cock-up wanker?" She licks a bit of curry sauce off her knuckle. "Something along those lines."

I'm suddenly less ravenous than I was a moment ago. "That's rather harsh."

Pansy shrugs. There's a small ladder in her tights that shows as she shifts and her black knit skirt rides higher up her thighs. I know better than to point it out in the mood she's in. "You'll have to apologise, you know. They'll never give us any dosh if Potter puts a black mark against us."

She's right, I know. "I don't want to."

"You will if you want to keep this flat." Pansy licks a chopstick. "Or would you rather move back in with Blaise and me? I'd have to get my laundry out of your old room, and you'll spend all night listening to that cow Marta giggle and moan like a--"

"I'd rather stay at Greg's and have to endure his cooking," I say bluntly. 

Pansy sticks her chopstick back in her noodles and sets them aside. "And his mother ringing up every other hour." Somehow her feet end up in my lap. I try to knock them off, but Pansy just plops them back on my thigh. With a sigh, I balance my takeaway on her bony ankles. 

"You're the cow."

"And you love me." Pansy flexes her toes. "So. Potter."

I bite into a piece of chicken. "What about him?"

The glow of the laptop screen illuminates Pansy's face. She brushes a lock of dark hair off her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. She's the one of us who'd taken the longest to adjust to life as a Muggle. She still hates being, as she calls it, magically castrated, and I know, though she'd never admit it, that she keeps the fragments of her snapped wand with her at all times, usually wrapped in a white silk scarf at the bottom of her handbag. They'd taken her magic not because of anything she'd done specifically, but because her parents were Death Eaters and she'd made too many enemies during our Hogwarts years and said a bit too much in front of the wrong ears. The arseholes in power after the war listened to their children and gave too much credence to the petty struggles, malicious gossip, and fierce jealousies of adolescence. And so, one by one, we children of Slytherin House paid the price not only for the sins of our father and mothers, but for the stupidities of our youth. 

We were the lucky ones, Pans and I. Blaise and Millie too. Even Greg. We'd found our place outside of wizarding society. Others hadn't been so fortunate. They found Theo Nott hanging from the shelves at his job in a Tesco's. He'd wrapped an electrical cord around his neck four times. His mother's anguish at the funeral was terrible. Sometimes I still dream about it.

Pansy's watching me. "Was it hard seeing Potter?"

"No," I lie. 

"Rubbish." Her heel presses into my thigh. Hard. "You're a shit liar, Draco. Particularly for a Slytherin."

I push her feet off my lap, catching my peppercorn chicken before it falls. "I've not the slightest idea what you mean."

Pansy laughs. "Since we were eleven it's always been Potter this and Potter that. You spent more time fifth year watching his arse than you did my tits, and you were supposed to be _my_ boyfriend." She ignores my baleful glare. "Don't even tell me you didn't fantasise about him rescuing you from the Manor in seventh year, either, because we talk about this every time you get pissed on the vodka Blaise's mum sends at Christmas, and really, love, there are certain of your sex dreams I'd rather not hear the whole of, trust me."

My face heats up. I'd absolutely forgotten about those discussions. "I'm never drinking with you again, I swear."

"A vow you'll break by weekend next." Pansy sits up. "So. You and Potter in the same room. Was the sexual tension palpable?"

"If by sexual tension," I say dryly, "you mean him practically accusing me of funneling funds to the Knights of Walpurgis and other such potentially dark organisations, then yes."

Pansy looks disappointed. 

"What?" I ask, my annoyance rising. 

She shrugs and reaches for her noodles. "Nothing."

We sit in silence, just eating, until Pansy sighs. 

I just look at her. 

"It _was_ hard, wasn't it?" Pansy moves closer, leaning up against my shoulder. I can smell the rose perfume from Paris her mother first gave her for her sixteenth birthday. A bottle arrives every November now, not by owl but by post, and the return address is always different. Most days Pansy's not entirely certain where her parents are any longer. I suspect they've spent most of their fortune running, always trying to keep ahead of the Aurors. Not that I blame them. Azkaban would kill Phillip Parkinson. 

For a moment I think about not answering. But there aren't secrets between Pans and myself. She holds my heart as closely as I hold hers. 

"Yes," I say, and I can't look at her. "I wasn't expecting _him_ , of all people." 

She's the only one who knows about the kiss. I was young and stupid, and Potter had just kept my mother out of Azkaban. And then he'd been in the loo alone with me, after the Wizengamot's ruling, and I'd had to say thank you, as much as it pained me. He'd been there beside me, standing at the sinks, and we'd looked at each other in the mirror, and I don't know why--it must have been some sort of youthful idiocy--but I turned and, leaning in, pressed my mouth against Potter's. 

I hadn't expected him to grab my arms and push me against the edge of the sink. I hadn't expected him to kiss me back, so roughly that I could barely breathe. And I certainly hadn't expected him to pull back, face pale and horrified, and then stammer something that barely passed for an apology before he ran out of the loo, leaving me behind, stunned and shattered.

The next time I'd seen Potter, he'd made certain there were people between us. Even a Hufflepuff would have understood that message. I haven't seen him since. Not until today.

"Did he say anything about…" Pansy trails off, and I shake my head. 

"Only business." I set my chicken down. "And I went off on him, like a right tit."

Pansy slips beneath my arm, pressing her face to my chest. "I'm sorry, love."

I smooth my fingers over her soft hair. "My own damned fault." Potter's always been able to make me act like a fool. "But, you're right. Mills is right. I'll have to apologise, as much as I'd rather eat one of Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts."

That earns me a small smile. "We need the money."

"I know." I wrap a lock of her hair around my fingertip, then let it slip loose. "Speaking of Squibs and money, the Richardson girl's seventeen next month. Nearly time for a Muggle job."

Pansy curls into my side. "I've entered her into the registry. If she comes in to see me next week I can have a birth certificate for her."

"Because you're brilliant."

"I am at that." Pansy catches my hand and holds it, her red polished fingernails tracing along the lines in my palm. "Do you want me to go with you when you see him next?"

I almost say yes. Instead I shake my head. "I can do it myself. Man up and all that."

Pansy wrinkles her nose. "What a terrible term. Very sexist of you, Draco Malfoy." She laughs when I push her face away. "I mean that."

A wave of affection washes over me. Sometimes I wish that I hadn't turned out bent, that things had worked between the two of us the way our parents had hoped. I might have been happy with Pans, perhaps. We might have had a son--or two--or even a girl, and perhaps then Blaise would never have broken Pansy's heart and I would never have developed this ridiculous _whatever_ towards Harry stupid bloody fucking Potter.

I kick my shoes off, then reach out with one leg and press the laptop's trackpad. "For you, darling," I drawl, "I'll even endure the wrath of Britain's national baking treasure."

Pansy smiles and settles back against me. "I love you too."

The criticism of anise biscuits begins again. I relax into the sofa and attempt to think about something--anything--besides Harry Potter and his stupidly broad shoulders.

I fail. 

Utterly.

***

I've never liked the Ministry's endless hallways. If I'm honest, I've never liked the Ministry itself, but that's beside the point. Most of the times I've been in these corridors beneath Whitehall have brought me either anguish or annoyance. I fully expect today to fall into the latter, particularly given the distasteful glower the security witch turns on me when I present my Ministry-issued identity card in place of a wand. It's humiliating enough to have the whole queue behind me know my political status--neither wizard nor Muggle nor bloody damn Squib. Their cards are at least edged with a subtle green, not the thick black lines that starkly mark me as a Snapped, or so the colloquial term is for one of my caste. I believe the preferred term in Ministry literature is a Disenfranchised Wizard, forbidden the practice of magic and the right to vote, at least until the Wizengamot chooses to reinstate both. Not bloody likely. Last time that particular category had been in legal use, it'd stretched from the first stirrings of the Enlightenment to the reformers of Victoria's reign.

Still, I don't know why the card embarrasses me so much. I'd been the only one in the line in Muggle clothes. It's not as if I hadn't stood out like a gaping sore in my Muggle jeans and my thick-knit jumper. And I have to admit, I'd chosen my attire deliberately. I don't want to be seen as one of them any longer. I want to push it in their faces, to make them acknowledge what I've become now that they've binned the lot of us.

The hall on which Potter's office is purportedly located--though I have yet to actually find the damned thing, despite the security witch's directions and the silver chain of the location charm fastened to my wrist--is long and narrow, panelled in dark wood and carpeted in a thick plum plush that's only threadbare in the shadowy corners. Fairly posh for the Ministry, really, but it's not as if you'd expect them to put Potter on one of the grimmer storeys. A seating area contains a wide bay window that overlooks pastureland. Someone's Friesian cow wanders alongside a brook, stopping to take a mouthful of green grass. It looks warm and sunny and the complete antithesis of grey and gloomy London. I can't help but wish myself there, sprawled out in the sweet-smelling pasture with a hamper of wine, bread and cheese and a thick book, rather than attempting to track down Harry sodding Potter's office.

I turn the corner and nearly run into the man himself. 

"Malfoy," Potter says, unsurprised, and of course, I realise, the security witch must have told him I was on my way down. "I was afraid you were lost." A small smile quirks his mouth. "Or done a runner."

"Bloody hallway" is all I can manage to get out, and I sound a right tit. But Potter's wearing trousers in a Muggle cut rather than wizarding, a half-done yellow and black tie, and a white button-down beneath his black robe, open down the front. I can't determine if it's a new wizarding style I'm unfamiliar with or if Potter's just slovenly. Either way it looks good on him, and that irritates me enough to make me scowl at him.

Potter looks taken aback at first, then amused again. "I still get turned around down here if I'm not paying attention," he says. "Come with me?"

It's a request, not an order, which is the only reason I follow him without protest down the corridor and around another corner. His shoulders are solid beneath the wool of his robe, and his hair curls over the edge of his collar, in desperate need of a trimming. He pushes open a door, and I can smell a hint of cologne, citrus and sandalwood, as I walk past him and into his office. I have an overwhelming urge to taste him, to nip at the softness of his neck, drag my tongue along the angle of his jaw, and that realisation horrifies me. 

The office is large and untidy, with piles of papers and file jackets stacked on shelves that line the narrow window. He's charmed the glass panes to look out on the Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts, and I don't know whether to be charmed or mock him for his maudlinity. Before I can decide, he flicks his wand at a box of files sitting on a chair and sends it flying across the room, nearly knocking into the tea service on top of a small cabinet. Potter winces, then eyes me. 

"Tea?" he asks.

I snort. "Thanks, but no."

He shrugs, then motions towards the newly cleared leather chair. It creaks when I sit, then shudders before settling comfortably beneath me. I can feel the shiver of magic under my thighs, and my throat closes tightly. I drop my satchel on the floor next to me. I miss magic. I miss the way it feels, the way it courses through me, tensing my muscles and sparking across my skin. For a moment, I'm angry, filled with a bitter grief, but it recedes. I've had time to come to terms with my life, and I can't help but note the irony of my place here in this office, across from Potter. The majority of my life I'd been told I would be a leader of the wizarding world, that I would have an office within the bowels of the Ministry, that I would wend my way through the corridors of power, that magic and influence were my birthrights. Now look at me. Not a house-elf in sight, and I've an opinion on whether Waitrose, Sainsbury's or Tesco is the better market--although I rather like Marks and Sparks' prawn salad.

Potter drops into the chair behind his desk. "What's so amusing?"

"What?" I look over at him, startled. "Oh. Nothing really. Just the realisation that I'm more a Muggle than you now." For a moment, I think he's going to protest, but he doesn't. 

"It's been a while since I've been to the cinema," Potter admits. "Or ridden the Tube."

I cross one ankle over my knee. My brown leather boots are vintage, picked up in a stall at Camden Market one Saturday morning. I rub a thumb over the edge of one boot, wiping away a smudge of mud. "Pathetic for the Muggle Outreach Office, really."

"One would think."

We look at each other for a long moment. 

"So," Potter says, just as I say, "how on earth did you end up in Muggle Outreach?" We both stop, then Potter laughs. "It's not a ridiculous question," I point out, annoyed. "Last I heard you were destined for the Aurors."

Potter toys with a quill on his desk. "Two years in I realised I hated it. Ron was better than I was. He's more strategic. Thinks logically." He drops the quill and rolls it beneath his thumb. "I just went into every situation blindly throwing spells and hoping sheer luck got me out alive. It was either leave or end up in St Mungo's every few weeks."

That sounds like the Potter I remember. Foolhardy to the extreme. "And Muggle Outreach?"

"Bounced around a few departments in the DMLE," Potter says. "Ended up with the solicitors and found out I was good with law, but I didn't want to focus on Wizengamot or criminal proceedings, not that they're terribly different from one another." 

"Obviously."

He grins. "Didn't want to train with the solicitors either, so Kingsley stuck me in here. He reckoned I was the only one who was interested in figuring out the legal complexities of magical and Muggle relations. Wasn't half wrong." 

"Thrilling," I say. "Not that I'd ever have considered you a legal brain trust."

"I like puzzles." Potter leans back in his chair. "Enigmas. They intrigue me."

I eye him sceptically. "Muggles are enigmas to you?"

"Some of them," he says. "Some wizards are too. But I meant the grey space in magical law. You know. What we do when magic shows up in Muggle families, how we support Squibs, that sort of thing."

His appearance in my office is beginning to make more sense. "They sent the funding proposal to you."

Potters nods. "Dawlish didn't know what to do with it. He was just going to send some Aurors your way. Rattle you up a bit to see if you were legit. Figured that would wind you up more than if I showed up with some questions." He smoothes a hand along a file jacket. It flutters beneath his touch. "I was wrong, I suppose."

Damnation. I don't care that I've come to apologise. I still don't want to do it. "I may," I say reluctantly, "have overreacted. Slightly. Or so Millie and Pans imply. Blaise thinks I should have decked you, not that he'd have been arsed to do so."

One side of Potter's mouth twitches into a smile. "Are you apologising, Malfoy?"

"No." I glare at him. "Just suggesting that my reaction may have been excessive."

He goes on as if he doesn't hear me. "Because you've never apologised before." 

"Don't be a twat." I drum my fingers against the arm of my chair. 

The twitch grows into a wider smile. "Apology accepted."

I look away. Outside his window a Chaser in red and gold swoops past. I grind my teeth. Of course it'd be Gryffindor. Arsehole.

The clock in the corner ticks loudly. Potter shifts in his chair, leaning forward. "You're doing good work," he says after a moment. He flips open a file jacket. I can see one of our booklets beneath his fingertips, our motto _Diagon Alley to Horizon Tally: Your Safe Haven in the Muggle World_ in bold type across the cover. Greg waves at me from beneath Potter's palm. One of the printers down Knockturn Alley had printed the booklet for us after we helped his Squib daughter settle in Manchester. She's PC now with the Greater Manchester Police, and she's dating a Muggle woman she met in a Canal Street pub.

"Of course, we are," I snap. "We're not funding the Dark Lord's cronies. Eighty-five percent of our monies go to the people we're setting up with new lives. Blaise, Mills and I barely draw pay packets. Pansy has an outside job to support her cosmetics addiction, and Blaise, who happens to be a shockingly decent educator, picks up a few quid teaching English and Italian at a language centre a few nights a week." I don't tell him I've gone through a large chunk of my inheritance already, just trying to survive. "We need Ministry help. There's so much more we could do--"

"I know." Potter closes the file jacket again. "I've read the proposal. It's good. Zabini and Parkinson make an excellent case for why the Ministry should be part of your work. Expand on it even." At my frown he holds up a hand. "I'm not going to suggest we take it over. You know how best to run your own programme." 

My eyes narrow in suspicion. "There's a _but_ in there somewhere."

Potter hesitates, then runs a hand through his messy hair. I hate him for how attractive it looks. Bastard. He probably doesn't even remember kissing me all those years ago. He'd certainly made his feelings clear, running off the way he had. And now here I am, pathetic and ridiculous and an exile, wondering what it would be like to feel his lips against mine once more.

"Malfoy," Potter says, and I realise I've lost the thread of conversation. "Is that a problem?"

"Is what a problem?" I repeat, stupidly, trying not to look at his mouth.

Potter scratches at his jaw. "You'd have to adhere to guidelines set out by the budgetary oversight board and agree to quarterly audits of your finances."

"Because you don't trust us."

"If that's the case, then the Ministry doesn't trust any of its departments," Potter says with a laugh. "It's standard procedure." He pauses. "I just know you must be wary about Ministerial interference."

I hate that he's right. He's a bastard, and he shouldn't be able to see through me the way he does. My mouth thins. "It's fine."

After a moment, Potter nods. "I'll approve the funding request from my end then. It'll have to go through the treasury, of course, but I doubt they'll say no."

"They never do to Harry Potter, I'm sure." I can't help myself. I know it's foolish of me, but Potter's such a sodding prat. And it annoys me that he of all people is the one I'm having to kowtow to for money. My younger self would despise me, and I really can't blame him.

Potter tenses. "It's a good proposal," he says again. "Nothing to do with me." He's lying and we both know it. He looks away. 

I study him. "They were going to toss it out, weren't they? And then you saw my name on it, and what? Decided I needed what? Saving?"

"No." He won't look at me.

"Fucking hell," I say, and I want to laugh. Or punch something. Preferably Potter. "My saviour. Is that what you want me to say?"

"No," he repeats. This time he looks at me, and his eyes are dark and bright. "I think what you do is something we should be doing as a society--as a _government_ \--and I don't care if it does have your name attached to it--"

That feels like a slap in the face. I just stare at him. It's not that I didn't know people still thought that way. I suppose I just assumed Potter wouldn't be one of them.

"I didn't mean that," Potter says. "Not like that. I meant--"

I stand up slowly. "I think I know what you meant, Potter." 

"Malfoy." 

I can't do this. I pick up my satchel. "Consider the proposal withdrawn." 

"Draco," he says as my hand curls around the doorknob. I stop. "I want to help--"

Right. I want to laugh, cry, throw a stupid file jacket at him. Instead I open the door to the hush of the Ministry hallway. "That's the last thing I need." I'm suddenly tired. "Or want."

I don't look back as I close the door behind me.

I can't.

***

"Well, that's done and dusted," Blaise says. His feet are propped up on my desk, even though he knows that annoys me. He points his half-eaten caramel Freddo at me. "We'll find the money another way."

Pansy reaches over and nicks part of Freddo's chocolate hand. She pops it in her mouth. "I could ask Grandmother. She might be able to sell something down Knockturn."

"Are you mad?" Millie asks. She turns her glare on me. "We're not sending _anyone's_ gran off to flog disreputable heirlooms--"

"Allegedly disreputable," Pansy interrupts.

Millie waves a dismissive hand at her. "Least of all, _your_ gran. Poor old thing. She's not half there most of the time."

"Poor old thing, my arse," Pansy says with a curl of her lip. "The woman's vicious."

"When she's coherent." Millie pushes her dark curls back from her face. "The point is, no one's gran is going to end up in Azkaban because the Aurors catch her in Borgin and Burkes."

Pansy slumps back in her seat. "You're no fun," she mutters. "Misery."

Millie rolls her eyes and looks back at me. "That's a stop-gap anyway. Sustainable funding, that's what we need. And only the Ministry or a spectacularly wealthy, extremely committed donor could give us that."

"I'm not apologising to Potter again, Mills," I say flatly. "Blaise is right. Done and dusted."

She sighs. "I know."

We all fall silent. Mathilda hops up onto my desk and sits, watching us. She yawns, a wide stretch of pink mouth and sharp teeth, before she sprawls across a stack of papers. I scratch the back of her ears, and her tail thumbs lightly against my desk blotter. It's comforting. 

"Something will work out," Blaise says after a moment. "Look at the four of us. Always land on our feet, don't we?" He gives me a small smile. "Thanks to our fearless leader here. I mean, a decade ago, who'd have thought the four of us could live without magic?"

Pansy places a hand over Blaise's. Their fingers curl together, and I suspect Marta will soon be forgotten, despite her lovely, creamy bosom. "Us against the world?"

Blaise shrugs. "It's not like we couldn't slow down a bit here. Mils and Draco could find other jobs. Not like we don't know how to do that, yeah?"

He has a point. I look around my office, at the worn wooden filing cabinets and my broken wand and the grimy window, at Mathilda's favourite perch and her small bowls of food and water behind my office door. I'd miss this place, I know. I've spent years behind this desk, trying to help people. Trying to make things right. I don't want to leave it behind, but if I have to, I will.

"I need wine," Pansy says with a sigh. "A malbec, perhaps, or a good merlot." She squeezes Blaise's hand. "Buy us a drink, will you?"

"Bitter for me," Millie says. "None of that half-pint for the ladies shit either."

"Draco?" Blaise raises his eyebrow. "Pub?"

I shake my head. "Go on without me. I'll catch up later. I've some work I want to finish." 

He hesitates, then nods as he stands. "If you're certain."

Pansy gives me a quick hug. "No moping."

"Get off me, woman," I say, pressing a quick kiss to her temple. "I'll be down the Beggar before you lot get too pissed."

"Better hurry then." Millie stops at the door, Blaise and Pansy sliding past her. "You all right then?"

"Stop worrying." I give her as best a smile as I can manage. "I'm fine."

When the door closes behind them, I lean back in my chair and let out an unsteady breath. They need me to be strong; they always have. It'd been me that'd managed to figure out how to navigate Muggle London. It'd been me that had found us the first flat we'd all shared, those first wretched jobs we'd needed during the months that our families' Gringotts accounts were frozen. 

This isn't the end of the world, as much as I'd like it to be. We've lived through worse. But all I can think of is Potter and the way his mouth had once felt against mine. It's always been him, hasn't it? I'm pulled towards him, whether I want to be or not. And all I crave right now is that hum of magic around him, that spark and thrum that makes my whole body ache. 

I'm a fool. An idiot. A complete and utter twat. 

Potter doesn't want me. Oh, he'd like to save me, the way he always has. But that's all I am to him. A project. Someone to draw back from the dangers of the dark side. I've seen that film before. I want nothing to do with it. Thank you very much, but I don't need to be rescued. I've saved myself.

Mathilda nudges my hand, and I absentmindedly drag my palm along her fur. 

Still, there's a part of me that wants to make my way back to the Ministry, to find Potter and to push him up against his office door, to kiss him until we're both breathless.

I'm fairly certain it's the part of me that also has a deathwish and makes terrible life decisions such as taking on the Dark Mark and wearing corduroy. 

Mathilda flops over, stretching her paws out to catch my hand. Her sandpaper tongue laps at my thumb before I pull it away. She sits up again and blinks at me.

"Stop judging me," I say. She just yawns and curls up on a stack of paperwork, her arse to me. She flicks her tail. 

No more bad life decisions. No more kissing stupid Gryffindors who refuse to even acknowledge it happened. No more Harry Potter. Ever.

Peace settles over me. Excellent decision, that. I reach for my quill. No more Potter. 

Done and dusted.

***

The streetlamps have just clicked on as I step out of the building. There's still time to catch Blaise and Pansy at least at the Beggar. Millie will probably have gone home already to walk her pug. I'm fairly certain she's more fond of that dog than she has been of any woman she's ever dated. Buttercup's lived with her longer than any girlfriend.

It's cool outside for early October, and I've just pulled my jacket on, popping the collar up, when I turn and see him sitting on the bottom step. He's traded in his wizarding robe for a Muggle jumper, and a thin stream of grey smoke twists up from the cigarette in his hand. He exhales another puff, then drops the cig, grinding it out with the heel of his boot.

"Malfoy," Potter says, and my heart skips a beat. 

I clutch my satchel tighter against my body, the strap digging into my shoulder. "What do you want?"

Potter stands, dusting the street grim off his arse. He leans against the stone balustrade edging the four steps that lead up to my building's entryway. "Waiting for you."

"Why?" I still haven't come down from the top step. My stomach twists and curls. I don't like surprises, particularly not ones involving Potter.

Potter smiles. The streetlamp lights his features in the dusk. "I think I've been a tit about all this."

I take one step down. "Okay." I wait for him to continue.

"Gone about it the wrong way." Potter takes one step up towards me. 

"How so?" Another step down. Something shudders through me. Want. Hope. Need.

"I wanted your case," Potter says quietly. "And maybe part of me thought you might need some saving, which was stupid of me, especially once I read your proposal. Which is brilliant by the way. And deserves funding regardless. But…" He trails off, then steps up beside me. 

Traffic rumbles down the road in front of us. I can barely hear it. I'm caught by the look on Potter's face, hungry and raw. My mouth is dry. "What?"

Potter touches my face, his fingers featherlight against my jaw. My breath catches in my throat. I don't pull back. 

His rough thumb swipes across my bottom lip. "The stupidest thing I ever did," he says, "was to run out of that damn loo."

"Why did you?" My mouth moves against his skin. His eyes close for a moment before opening again. They're dark and green, and I can't look away.

"I didn't even know I fancied blokes, really." Potter's hand drops, and I want to cry out, to tell him to touch me again. "And then you kissed me with the water running in the sink, and there was nothing I wanted more." He gives me a wry smile. "You scared the hell out of me, Malfoy, and it took a while for me to figure out why."

"Draco," I say. His eyebrows go up. I swallow. "Don't call me Malfoy."

His mouth curves. "Draco." He offers me his hand. "Harry."

When his fingers curl around mine, I can't help the shiver that goes through me. I could get drunk on his magic, I think. "Harry," I whisper, and I let him pull me closer. 

Harry's mouth meets mine, soft and hesitant at first. There's a soft noise--a gasp, a sigh--and I realise it comes from me. For a moment embarrassment wells up in me, and then Harry's kissing me, hard and eager, his teeth rough on my lip, his tongue licking away the sting.

He pulls away. "Sorry," he says, but I can tell he's not. Neither am I. "I don't believe in fate, you know. No grand destinies and all that shit. But then there's a proposal on my desk, and no one knows what to do with it because there's a Malfoy involved. And all I can think is that I kissed you once and cocked it up. And I just really wanted a chance to do it again. The kissing part, not the cocking up."

"So you showed up in my office."

"Like a complete wanker," Harry says. "In my defence, you can be a bit intimidating."

I laugh. "Says Harry sodding Potter."

Harry's hands settle on my hips. "And I cocked up again."

"A bit." I let myself touch his cheek. His skin is warm and faintly stubbled. I lean forward again and press my lips against his. It's a gentler kiss, slow and sweet. I'm the one who pulls back this time, looking at him. "Are you taking the piss?" I ask. I'm almost afraid to ask. I don't want him to be.

"No." His fingers slide over the angle of my jaw, down my throat. I let my head drop back, knowing that he's feeling the throb of my pulse. He takes a ragged breath. "I don't really want to stop kissing you."

I don't want him to either. "I'm not easy, Potter."

"Harry," he says again. "And I didn't think you were." He hesitates. "Can I buy you a pint?"

I let out a shaky laugh. The ridiculousness of my situation is starting to settle on me. "Are you asking me out?"

"Yes?" Harry hops down a step as a couple passes us, but he keeps one hand on my hip. He looks up at me through his stupidly messy fringe. "Do you mind?"

I don't. My chest feels like it's expanding, joy fluttering through me. "I suppose you can buy me a whisky down the Beggar." Pansy and Blaise will die, I know. I'm rather looking forward to their expressions of shock when we walk in together.

Harry smiles at me. He holds out a hand. "Care to join me?"

"Will kissing be involved?" I pretend to consider.

He quirks the corner of his luscious mouth. "There's a definite possibility."

I take his hand. His thick fingers curl around mine. "Then how can I say no?"

This won't work. I know that. It's the all-time worst of a ridiculous series of bad ideas. Potter will leave. I'll drive him away for sure. Or I'll get bored. Something will happen.

The flesh of his palm is warm against mine and my cheeks are glowing as we walk down the familiar path to the pub, now transformed because Potter's next to me.

I've learned not to take present happiness for granted. I've learned not to ask too much of the future before the morning arrives. Tonight I am here, with Potter, and the world hums with the warmth and the promise of it.

This, in a way, is as magic as it gets.


End file.
